"Becoming Victoria"

I am honoured and excited to have been invited by the Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival committee to appear as a young Queen Victoria at this year's festival from 22nd-28th August 2016. In preparation for this role I will be designing and making the costumes for the young queen over the coming months. These will be authentic reproductions of the fashions of the early years of Victoria's reign and will include a range of 1840s women's garments from corsets and petticoats to day dresses, ball gowns and bonnets. This blog will document and share my progress as I research, design and stitch each element to reveal the secrets of "Becoming Victoria".

Tuesday, 30 August 2016

Minus 2 days to go!! I can't believe the week flew by so quickly but I am glad to finally be able to sit down and take a break. I had an absolutely fabulous week but it was such a whirlwind. Apologies to any readers that have been waiting for photographs but I never had time to log on to the computer, never mind upload any pictures. However, I have finally downloaded the pictures from the camera and have also been sent some excellent images from photographers who were visiting the festival.

These are just a few shots that were very kindly shared with me by Neil Tudor. I will post more of the pictures of different events later on, once I have had a chance to sort through them. Many thanks to Neil for these beautiful shots which he so kindly sent to me today.

Sunday, 21 August 2016

The Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival starts tomorrow and I am looking forward to being able to wear my finished costumes. I will be appearing as the young Queen Victoria from 12 noon tomorrow and look forward to meeting anyone who has been following the blog that will be attending the festival. For those of you not attending, I will share pictures from the various events here throughout the week. Fingers crossed for good weather!

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

6 days to go and I think, fingers crossed, that Victoria's wardrobe is more or less finished.There are one or two little finishing jobs to see to, but all of the main garments are now complete.

The last item to be finished was a bonnet for wearing to day time events.

Bonnets were an essential part of 19th century women's dress. They dominated millinery fashions throughout the first half of the century and were often regarded as emblematic of the ideals of Victorian womanhood: respectability, virtue, delicacy, authenticity and domesticity.* A woman could not leave the house with her head uncovered and bonnets were the most fashionable and most conventional choice of headwear.

Although the Queen would have worn a crown or tiara for state occasions and evening events, during the day she too wore bonnets. Unfortunately, there are very few early portraits of the Queen in everyday dress as most paintings depicted her in her robes of state, her wedding dress, or regalia. However, this 1856 portrait by Charles Lucien-Louis Muller depicts the Queen in a simple red day gown and white bonnet with ostrich feathers.

There are also a number of the Queen's bonnets in the Royal Collections at the Museum of London, including a straw bonnet decorated with deep red ribbons.

"These are the only known examples of Queen Victoria's bonnets from before 1861" - Bonnets, 1845-1855 , Museum of London (Mol.66.79/16,17,18)

Taking inspiration from the colour combinations in the portrait and extant bonnets, I chose a deep red silk twill that complements the red and gold silk gown for my bonnet with white lace and ostrich feather trimmings. The bonnet has the typical form of 1840s bonnets: a close fitting round brim framing the face and an almost horizontal line from the round crown to the brim, tied close under the chin. In the early 1840s, the brim extended forwards, hiding the wearer's profile, but towards the decade began to slip back to reveal more of the the hair and cheek.

The interior of the bonnet is trimmed with a lace ruffle that nestles around the face when worn. This will complete Victoria's outfits for daytime wear when out and about in town.

* References
Joanne Sullivan, "Bonnet Ribbons: A study of the use and representation of silk ribbons as ties on fashionable bonnets, 1830-1899", (Masters Dissertation, University of Glasgow, 2015)
Joan Nunn, Fashion in Costume 1200-1980, (London: The Herbert Press, 1984), 124.
Susan Hiner, Accessories to Modernity: Fashion and the Feminine in Nineteenth-Century France, (Philadelphia and Oxford: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 3.

Monday, 8 August 2016

It's amazing how time seems to move faster the closer you get to a deadline. I have been hard at work on Victoria's costumes over the last week and unfortunately have let the posts slip a little bit.

Since my last post, we have been in the news....

A brief interview with the Brecon and Radnor express was published last week and can be viewed here. The picture is of me posing with Victoria's completed ballgown. Believe it or not, despite the apparent size difference in the photograph, the dress does actually fit on me!

I have also been working on my demonstration for the festival. This will take place at 3:15pm on Wednesday 24th August at the Hotel Commodore. For anyone attending the festival, this will be a chance to come along and see the costumes in person. I will be demonstrating every layer of an 1840s lady's toilette, from the chemise and bloomers right through to the shoes and bonnets and there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and see the costumes up close.

For this purpose, I have spent the last week stitching a chemise to be worn underneath the corset with a neckline that mirrors those of the dresses so that it won't stick out like my other chemises have done on the dress form. This chemise was loosely modelled on an original chemise in the Met Museum and altered to match the dress patterns that I will be wearing in shape.

Like this chemisette, mine is made of muslin and ties around the waist underneath the dress. Instead of embroidery I have added a lace collar.

Finally, I have been experimenting with dressing Victoria's wig but I will save the results to share in another post. Back to the stitching just now as I have a silk bonnet to finish for Victoria to wear when out and about in town during the festival week.

Thursday, 28 July 2016

I can't believe how fast the time is running out and I don't have long to post today. But before I get back to stitching (all the unexciting bits - eyelets holes and hook and eyes to fasten the dresses and boning channels) I just thought I would share some pictures of the finished ball gown. That is, finished without all of the hand-stitched lacing holes up the back!

Inspired by Queen Victoria's wedding dress, this gown has a deep pointed waist, double puff sleeves and a deep lace bertha at the neckline. This gown will be worn with the Queen's regalia for The Victorian Grand Ball on Friday 26th August and also for the Pageant of Queen Victoria's life on Tuesday 23rd August.

The original dress is made of Spitalfield's silk. It was originally creamy white but has discoloured over time and is now a darker shade of cream. The dress has a pleated skirt and a separate bodice. The bodice has a very pronounced point at the waist and is decorated with Honiton bobbin lace. The skirt was also originally trimmed with a wide Honiton lace flounce.

Close up of Queen Victoria in Sir George Hayter's painting, "The Marriage of Queen Victoria", 1842. The Royal Collections. Image found here

My dress will be made in a creamy coloured moiré fabric. This is darker than the original shade of the dress but is in fact quite close to how the dress appears now. The skirt is pleated like the original wedding dress and I have adapted the bodice pattern I used for my other two dress to feature a deeper point at the front and a double puff sleeve. The gown will be trimmed with lace, although unfortunately nothing quite as extravagant and beautiful as the original Honiton lace.

The dress is not an exact replica but more of a homage to the wedding dress which also reflects some of the other dresses worn by Victoria for famous portraits. Some of these may have in fact been her wedding dress but is interesting to note that many of the paintings which depicted this dress were not true to the actual garment itself. Nevertheless, despite the differences between the paintings and engravings produced and published at the time, I have tried to stay true to the uncluttered line and simplicity of the original which provoked a new fashion for wedding gowns.

In this 1842 portrait by Winterhalter the Queen appears to be wearing her wedding gown - however, the sleeves and the lace frill appear shorter than on the original dress itself and the lace is missing from the cuffs. (Image found here)

Thursday, 21 July 2016

31 days to go and the silk dress is complete (all bar a few finishing touches).

The final stages of construction involved preparing and mounting the skirts. Both the outer silk fabric and the cotton lining had to be seamed and then hemmed by hand separately. I machine stitched the large rectangles of fabric for speed but worked the hems by hand to keep the stitching as invisible as possible. I also hand stitched 4" wide strips of cotton wadding into the hem of the lining as well as two 14" squares at the back waist. This wadding was a feature of the original gown and helps to give a little extra body to the hem and the back of the dress.

Hem stitches worked on the silk

To create the V-shape at the front to match the point of the bodice, the fabric of both the skirt and lining were folded and pressed down. The two fabrics were then placed together with the folded down edges sandwiched between them.

Pressing down the upper edges to match the point of the bodice

From this point on the two layers of fabric were treated as one. I worked two lines of gathering stitched at precise 3/8" intervals. When drawn up these stitches created a concertina effect known as cartridge pleats.

Cartridge pleats from above

Cartridge pleats viewed from the front

These pleats were then sewn on to the bodice one at a time by hand with two stitches through the back of each pleat holding them in place.

Mounting the skirt to the bodice - one stitch at a time!

This technique creates very small precise pleats that stand facing outwards away from the body rather than lying flat against it. They were a very common feature of dresses at this period and are visually very effective.

A close up of the finished pleats

So apart from the back fastening and some boning for the inside of the bodice this dress is now complete. These finishing touches will be added once I have tried on and fitted the dress for the last time to make sure that the back overlap is correct. The bodice will close with hooks and eyes and the boning will ensure that the bodice sits smoothly over the corset without any wrinkles.

Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival

About Me

Hello! My name is Joanne and I am passionate about re-creating historic costume. Whether I am using modern fabrics and a sewing machine or period-correct materials and techniques, I always strive to create beautiful garments and accessories that are true to the spirit of the past.